PEORIA, Ariz.  The Padres don’t measure the distance from Santo Domingo to their outlying Dominican Republic baseball academy in miles or even kilometers. Traveling the one road, they rattle off the speed bumps by number.

One through 29, each way.

“That doesn’t count the potholes, either,” said Randy Smith, the club’s vice president of player development/international scouting. “There’s a lot of potholes.”

Otherwise, everything about the oceanfront academy has been hailed as state of the art, the best in the D.R. Like its road in and out of town, though, the academy is not the fast track to major league baseball for the Latin America teenagers who sign with the majors’ only team with a Hispanic surname.

Admittedly late in adding its own academy to those of clubs who’ve had one for decades in the D.R. and reaped huge benefits – the Los Angeles Dodgers, Oakland Athletics and Toronto Blue Jays – the Padres are just now beginning to feel the presence of the first D.R. academy products in its major league clubhouse at spring training.

“They’re getting closer,” said Evaristo “Varo” Lantigua, the Padres coordinator of Latin American instruction. “For a couple of them, it could be this year.”

The closest would seem to be Jose de Paula, a lean, 25-year-old left-handed pitcher who last pitched for the Padres with Single-A Lake Elsinore in 2011, but was kept in the Dominican all of last year by visa issues. (Those are common among D.R. products, especially those found to have changed names and birth years, as was the case with promising outfielder Yeison Asencio.)

One of so, so many fine third basemen in the organization, Edinson Rincon, 22, looks to be maybe one step away from the majors this season. The middle-infield tandem of Jeudy Valdez and Jonathan Galvez may be Tucson Padres in the Triple-A Pacific Coast League. So might right-handed starting pitcher, Adys Portillo. (Also among the first wave of Padres academy prospects is strapping right-hander Simon Castro, whom the Padres used in trade to land left fielder Carlos Quentin last year.)

"You can see us all together all the time here in camp," said right fielder Rymer Liriano. "We've known each other for a long time and are excited to be here together."

Signed just before the Padres opened their academy in 2008, the 21-year-old Liriano is considered the tip of the spear from the Dominican, but he's not to be found between the lines of any field at Peoria Sports Complex this spring. Liriano is present at practices, but his right arm is adorned in a large brace, the result of Tommy John surgery that will sideline him for the entirety of 2013.

“Liri’s got a chance to be a five-tool player, an impact guy, if everything goes right,” said Smith. “We signed him at 16. The thing that stood out to me was his physical presence; he went out and your eyes went right to him.

“I remember like it was yesterday: he’s hitting balls to left and I said, “Hey, can you hit one to center for me?’ He hit the next pitch for a short-hop off the center field wall, the next pitch over the wall in center, the next pitch short-hopped the same wall again. I go (chuckling), “OK, thank you. Go back to doing what you were doing.”

What he was doing until the injury, sustained in winter ball, was being projected as the Padres’ right fielder of the near future. He was also fulfilling the prophecy of Lantigua, who was a coach with the Oakland organization when Liriano signed with San Diego.

“I told (then GM) Kevin Towers, “Liriano is the best Latin American player you’ve ever signed, talent-wise,” “ said Lantigua. “He showed that talent from the get-go. He just didn’t have experience, like so many of the Latin players, because all their experience is on the streets.”

Unlike American players who started with tee-ball and Little League and never had trouble finding an organized league and team as adolescents, Dominican kids don’t have such an outlet for their baseball gifts. They basically are raised and trained as individuals for the day they’re signed by a professional scout.

While they’re stronger-armed from everyday, all-day games of catch and pickup ball, most of the Dominican youths report to their assigned academy without a working grasp of game situations. The Padres’ academy provides a college-like atmosphere -- including dorm life, classroom work and English studies – but also a weight room that’s bigger than the one here at the spring training campus.

“You sign them at 16, so you see them so long, you think “Golly, they’ve been here forever, “ said Smith. “But then you see how old they are and they’re the same age as the guys you’re taking out of college. Patience is a key.”